Femme

Femme is a lesbian sexual identity that was created in the working class lesbian bar culture of the 1950s. Often spelt Fem in the Black lesbian community, it is a term used to distinguish Feminine lesbian and bisexual women from their Butch/Stud Lesbian counterparts and partners. Today the term is still used in this way but in recent years - following the influence of Queer gender identity theories - its meaning has, sometimes contentiously, been expanded to describe a queer-identified person who is feminine in their presentation regardless of their gender or sexuality.

It is often assumed that the Femme identity was constructed purely as an adjunct to the more visible Stud/Butch presentation. Femme Lesbian scholar Joan Nestle describes the Femme lesbian identity as being underrepresented in historical records, with femme women having been often attacked for ‘passing’ as straight whilst also being accused of imitating heteronormativity for pairing with a Butch/Stud partner. In Nestle’s definitive text on Femme identity, 'The Femme Question', she challenges this commonly held belief by stating that Butch-Femme relationships are “filled with a deeply lesbian language of stance, dress, gesture, love, courage and autonomy". Through their subversive appropriation of heteronormative gender roles these identities were considered "complex erotic and social statements" rooted in "gendered erotic identities". They publicly declared same sex love between women at a time when there was no liberation movement to support or protect them. Nestle claims that “(i)n the 1950s particularly, Butch-femme couples were the front-line warriors against sexual bigotry. Because they were so visible, they suffered the brunt of street violence. The irony of social change has made a radical, sexual, political statement of the 1950s appear today a reactionary, non feminist experience".

^{Main article: Lesbian feminism}

Lesbian Feminism saw a rejection of the Butch-Femme dynamic and therefore Femme identity. During the emergence of Lesbian feminism, femme lesbians were accused by prominent lesbian feminist figures of aping patriarchal beauty standards for wearing traditional feminine clothing. Black lesbian feminist poet and activist Audre Lorde in 'Tar Beach' wrote that “butch and femme role playing was the very opposite of what we felt being gay was all about - the love of women”. During this period femme lesbians were often shamed for their appearance, whilst androgyny was seen as the favoured way to dismantle the gender binary by radical lesbian feminists. Much of the criticism towards Femmes during this period was rooted in classism from middle class feminist academics towards working class lesbian women.

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